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April 18, 2018

Door Opened To India For Deeper Striking M777 Guns

India’s first new artillery guns since
the infamous Bofors Scandal of the eighties will enter service this
September when two BAE Systems M777 ultra-light howitzers (ULHs) are
handed over to the Indian Army. Part of a $750 million deal for 145 guns
concluded in November 2016, the first two guns arrived in May last year
and have since been deployed at the Pokhran field firing range in
India’s western desert sector to generate firing range tables for the
Army’s artillery directorate. The two guns, reset to their factory
settings and joined by three more guns that will arrive from the United
Kingdom, will join the Army in September and begin a training phase with
an artillery unit.

While in inquiry into a September 2017
barrel incident involving one of the M777s using local ammunition is
still underway, Livefist learns that the gun has since resumed firing
exercises for the Army’s range tables without a hitch, and will complete
the committed requirement over the next five months.

While the first lot of guns are being
supplied direct by BAE Systems, its Indian joint venture production
partner Mahindra’s Assembly, Integration and Test (AIT) facility opens
on Delhi’s outskirts by end June and will begun to supply
Indian-assembled guns at a rate of five per month starting March 2019.

Meanwhile, BAE Systems, which has been
involved in a U.S. Army requirement to extend the range of current and
future M777s with a longer barrel (from the current 39 cal to a new 55
cal barrel) has opened the door to the Indian Army to join up if its
interested. BAE Systems showcased M777 and M777ER models side by side at
DefExpo 2018.

Speaking to Livefist,
Paul West, India Campaign Director – Weapon Systems at BAE Systems said,
“It could be a simply logistics decision for the Indian Army if it is
interested in the extended range M777.”

The M777ER is a set of six modules that
can be retrofitted on existing M777 guns, doubling their effective range
to between 54-70 km depending on the sort of ammunition used. The
modules include a modified barrel, suspension and recoil system, and
adds approximately 500 kg to the M777’s existing weight, though BAE
Systems engineers are working to see if the modification can be effected
with no change in the gun’s weight.

West is cautious, though — and for good
reason. The M777 deal has had a long and troublesome birthing, with
India concluding the deal after over a decade in delayed process,
including several occasions when the contract appeared to be firmly on
the familiar proverbial backburner.

“The discussion and the M777 extended
range option isn’t meant to be disruptive or to interrupt the Indian
build program. However, it is a safer way for India to modernise looking
into the future,” West says.

With the BAE-Mahindra joint venture to
begin churning out guns from later this year, the Indian Army has been
briefed that it has the option of either retrofitting its M777s to the
ER standard later, or modifying the Faridabad assembly line itself so
that later tranches of the gun could be of the extended range version.
The Indian Army has heard out the offer, though it remains very unclear
how much manoeuvering room it may have with the existing deal
considering intensifying budgetary pressures. The Army could conceivably
understand the merit of advance planning on a modernised gun that it
has fought hard and long for, especially with the attendant Make in
India skin it will bear. But selling an additional cost on an existing deal at a time when other modernisation priorities tread water will be something else altogether.

BAE, though, is looking ahead. A more
realistic option could lie beyond the current order of 145 guns. The
current order is a bare 20 per cent of India’s known requirement of at
least 700 ultra-light howitzer guns for its mountain divisions. West
says an India-specific extended range barrel could be considered as part
of work undertaken by BAE-Mahindra in India. The U.S. Army will get to
fire six M777ER prototypes in 2020. The Indian production run of the
M777 will be complete by June 2021.

“It would be a good idea for a three-way
discussion to take place at this time between the Indian Army, the U.S.
Army and us. There’s huge commonality between the M777 and the M777ER,”
West says.

The Indian Air Force’s new Boeing CH-47F
Chinook heavylift helicopters, which begin arriving in March 2019, will
almost definitely count as one of their missions transporting
underslung M777s to forward areas for training and exercises. The M777ER
will also be Chinook-transportable, BAE Systems confirms.Competition to the M777 for further ultra-light howitzer orders from the
Indian Army though could come from India’s Kalyani Group, which
unveiled its own ULH offering at DefExpo this year. The

Being developed in two variants —
conventional recoil and ‘advance hybrid’ recoil — the
155mm/39cal artillery weapon system weighing between 4.3-4.8 tons. A
statement from the Kalyani Strategic Systems Ltd this week said, “This
breakthrough has been achieved through innovative design and use of
special lightweight materials. A one of its kind variant designed in the
world, this gun provides high field maneuverability.”

The Indian Army’s ambitious $8 billion
field artillery rationalisation plan looks to arm over 160 artillery
regiments with guns that span the full spectrum of howitzer technology.
The first of 100 L&T-Hanhwa Techwin K9 Vajra-T tracked
self-propelled howitzers begin deliveries this year to the Indian Army,
with L&T to concurrently begin rolling out Indian-built versions
from its Hazira facility in Gujarat. Prime Minister Modi was introduced
to the first specimen at DefExpo on April 12.

Apart from the high-visibility DRDO ATAGS and OFB Dhanush (an
Indian-built Bofors FH-77), another gun that will likely compete for
Indian Army orders, and unveiled at DefExpo, is a 155mm/52cal
truck-mounted gun system developed and built by India’s BEML in
collaboration with the Ordnance Factory Board and BEL.